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Recap: 'The Amazing Race' 16 Finale - 'Huger than Huge'

The Final Three race through San Francisco, where one loser sours the finale

By Daniel Fienberg Sunday, May 9, 2010 10:03 PM

Recap: 'The Amazing Race' 16 Finale - 'Huger than Huge'

Jet & Cord of 'The Amazing Race'

Credit: CBS

Wow.

Sunday (May 9) was the finale of "The Amazing Race" and one team won a million dollars and two other teams managed to make it to the final pit stop, running through the gauntlet of their eliminated comrades, enjoying respect and admiration.

I should be wanting to congratulate the winners, who ran a generally decent Race and weren't to be blamed for a lamely designed final leg. I should be a little disappointed, but not outraged, that the only team I really liked finished second, never losing their composure or their sense of humor. And I should be generally ambivalent about the team that finished third, since they didn't have an especially admirable "Amazing Race" departure.

Instead all I want to do is make fun of one of the show's many losers, the biggest loser of all: Pathetic, bitter, ignorant, conceited Brandy. Yech.

I'm not sure if Brandy is at fault for being the awful person that she clearly is (or has been showcased to be), or if the show's producers and editors are at fault for not only giving her a soapbox, but for letting her ugliness be the final and lingering thought from the season. I'm almost inclined to believe the latter, since there was no reason at all why the season couldn't have ended happily and triumphantly for the Top Three. Nobody cared what Brandy had to say and nobody had to see it.

Thus, this season of "Amazing Race" ended sourly and that was the choice the "Amazing Race" producers made.

[Full recap, with results, from Sunday's "Amazing Race" finale after the break...]

I feel a little bit sad for Dan & Jordan, actually. They were the "Amazing Race" winners and I almost don't care anymore, because Brandy decided that the traditionally gracious procession to the pit stop was going to be all about her (or, again, the show's producers decided that).

Dan & Jordan finished first and Carol & Brandy were both overjoyed and high-fiving. Jet & Cord finished second and Carol & Brandy were both overjoyed and high-fiving.

Viewers knew that this was all a set-up. The editors didn't think we needed to see reactions from 80 percent of the teams to the arriving winners and runners-up, but Brandy & Carol got multiple reaction shots just so that we could be waiting anxiously to see how they'd react when Brent & Caite arrived, a distant third.

And Brent & Caite arrived and Carol clapped slowly and sporadically. Brandy crossed her arms and pursed her lips. That was poor sportsmanship, but it could have just ended there. But for some reason, Phil Keoghan decided to make sure that the awkwardness continued, letting Caite make her obligatory speech about proving her intelligence (cut to Brandy muttering disparaging words under her breath) and then letting Caite know that *nearly* everybody was happy for her, but not everybody. Without hesitation, Caite turned to Brandy & Carol and began an apology. Whether you reckon Caite was being genuine or not, it was an apology that she had no reason to make. She and Brent chose to U-Turn a rival team that had been tormenting them from Week One and they successfully got that team out of the game. That's not poor strategy. That's perfect strategy. But Caite started to apologize and Brandy interrupted her and again began lecturing her on game strategy and common sense.

"Maybe y'all should have treated people a little nicer," Caite finally said. On the list of things I might have told Brandy in that moment, not a single one would have been anywhere near that polite, generous or, frankly, accurate. All Brandy had to do was not be a disgusting person and she and Carol never would have been U-Turned and they would have lost the Race due to their mediocrity.

Caite did say "y'all" and I want to emphasize that while Carol was a poor sport and while she certainly enabled Brandy, there was nothing in any way memorably bad about her.

So anyway, "The Amazing Race" production team decided to let that be the closing image of this season. They could have just as easily cut straight from Caite's "I've proven I'm not dumb" monologue to the boring talking heads and then the closing credits and we'd have ended on a happy note. I don't blame Phil for trying to facilitate a hollow reconciliation, but once the producers knew how that conversation went, it should have been trimmed.

Bad choice. They decided that in lieu of a heroic winner, they'd focus on a loser.

Dan & Jordan won, but as much as anything they won because of a couple early travel choices -- one very smart, the other pointlessly underhanded -- and not because of anything that happened on either the Roadblock or the Detour in San Francisco. To my mind, if neither finale task has any real bearing on the eventual result, that's shoddy Race architecture.

What put Dan & Jordan ahead? Well, they cut ahead of the Cowboys in line at the airport. The Models and The Cowboys got to the airport three hours before Dan & Jordan and camped out at the ticket desk. Jordan saw there was a gap between where the Models were sitting and where the Cowboys were sitting and he decided to throw his bag into that gap and claim second position. This is a point that Jet & Cord probably should have pressed more strongly, because the move was shady and either of them could have taken Jordan in a skirmish. The producers didn't give us a very good sense of the airplane geography to see how much of an advantage the Brothers gained over the Cowboys, but it was an icky, junior high move that Jordan got away with because he took advantage of a team too amiable to fight. So that wasn't very good, but the part where Dan & Jordan talked a flight attendant into letting them sit in an empty section of First Class? That was brilliant. If the rules don't prohibit it (and I guess they don't), that was just clever and put the Brothers into a significant lead coming out of the San Francisco airport, a lead they never relinquished.

It's the "never relinquished" part that mad the leg so increasingly dull. Driving to Battery Godrey to get their first clue was only a challenge if you got into a bad cab. And only the Models got into a bad cab. Brent & Caite responded to this adversity with great ugliness, complaining about their driver's lack of English skills, when it was his lack of San Francisco knowledge that really screwed them.

The Roadblock asked one player on each team to do a 120-foot vertical climb outside Coit Tower, which was pretty, but not meaningful. Dan, Cord and Brent were basically a wash, strength-wise, so the Roadblock had no impact on the leg. That means it wasn't a well-designed Roadblock.

After the Roadblock, the teams had a Detour which was more hilarious and cool than difficult. Teams had to go to the ILM offices and basically ignore some of the most awesome "Star Wars" memorabilia imaginable to do an amusing task where one play donned a motion capture suit and and the other sat in a different room with a headset and guided their partner through a virtual environment. At the end, the motion capture player was surrounded by a swiftly moving text scroll that the directing player had to transcribe to see their next destination.

Leaving aside Jordan's motion capture double-entendre -- "I strap on this skinny suit with these balls all around me." -- the Brothers weren't interesting at the Detour until Jet and Cord came in and Cord started wildly shouting out confusing directions in the hopes of messing the Brothers up. Cord was very funny -- "Hope and skip! Turn around! Turn around!" -- as was the situation where Jet was steering into a corner and couldn't get past a wildly spinning Jordan. As much as I like the Cowboys, they basically blew a million dollars by not suspecting there was a reason Jordan was spinning -- it helped slow down the scrolling task -- and getting paralyzed at the end of the task. That gaffe dropped them behind and briefly allowed the Models to catch up, though Caite forgot their money and documents, forcing them to turn again. The Models were never seen again.

In the end, teams had carry a heavy trunk from the bar Tonga to The Great American Musical Hall and then arrange a series of posters with the eliminated teams in order. Am I wrong, or have the finale memory tasks usually been harder than that? It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Jordan's a student of the game and he'd written down the elimination order and probably piles of additional information. The Brothers finished the memory challenge quickly, but the Cowboys didn't seem to make any mistakes either. But it must not have been close, because the editors didn't put an iota of effort into crosscutting that might fool us into thinking that the Cowboys might get to Candlestick ahead of the Brothers. There was no tension to which team was going to hit the field first.

And who needs tension when you decide to make Bitter Brandy into the centerpiece of a finale?

Blech.

Other thoughts on the "Amazing Race" finale:

*** In the Detour demo, the player in the director's chair was wearing a storm trooper costume. I was beyond disappointed that Dan and Jet and Brent didn't have to do their half of the task dressed as storm troopers. Also, how could *none* of the six players have even slightly geeked out on all of that "Star Wars" stuff? I know it's a race, but still...

*** So for all of the people complaining at Caite calling Carol & Brandy "The Lesbians," was it completely acceptable that that's what Jordan referred to them as in the memory challenge?

*** Dan showed real excitement when he figured out they were supposed to go to Candlestick for the final pit stop. That was good to see, because all season long, it's been "Fulfilling my brother's dream" this and "Fulfilling my brother's dream" that. At the very end, probably when his mind started cashing his winners' check, Dan gave some indication that winning might make him happy as well.

*** I like seeing smartness rewarded, so I wanted there to be more benefit gleaned from the Cowboys snagging a San Francisco guide book at the Shanghai airport. Yes, it was helpful for them, but no more or less helpful than the Brothers' strategy of getting information from bicyclists.

*** Overall, this was not such a great "Amazing Race" season? I'd have had more enthusiasm if the Cowboys had won or if the producers had opted not to show Brandy at all. There were too many dull teams and too many dull tasks and too little rewarding of excellence or punishing of the stupidity that ran amuck all season long. This group of contestants got to see some great locations and do some great stuff, but nothing was hard enough or challenging enough.

*** Even a lame season of "The Amazing Race" is still better than most of what passes for reality TV. Perhaps, though, this "Amazing Race" installment has just paled in comparison to a classic All-Star edition of "Survivor" currently being played out.

What'd you think of the finale? And what'd you think of this "Amazing Race" season as a whole?

Related Searches: TV, recaps, The Amazing Race, CBS, spoilers, finale, Huger Than Huge, Dan & Jordan

nic919

I am extremely disappointed with the producers to have ended TAR on that bitter note. We did not need to hear Brandy be bitter once again about the U-turn. As an adult, she should have gotten over it. I say this as someone who finds Brent and Caite to be pretty ignorant people and Caite's quest to use this race to improve her reputation to be laughable when she made herself look immature. Add to that the producers bending the rules so that 20 year old Caite (who acted like a 15 year old most of the time) was allowed to race even though she was not 21, and I am thoroughly unimpressed with the producers of TAR this year. The Emmy for best reality show should not go to them because the race wasn't that great and the attempts at manufactured drama actually detracted from the decent racers. I wasn't thrilled with the brothers by the end, but their behaviour was at least within the parameters of the game.

I wanted the cowboys to win, but at least they took second place in stride. If there is an All-Stars, they need to come back.
May 9, 2010 at 10:57PM EST Reply to Comment
bj

Very disappointed in who won this race. All the producers let us see is that people are back stabbers, get away with insults and cheating, and are poor sportsmen competitors. I will not watch another Race - this one spoiled what was once enjoyable.
May 9, 2010 at 11:08PM EST Reply to Comment
andythesaint

It should be a rule: all final legs should be self-navigated. I hate when the game is decided on who has the right cab. That probably wasn't the case here, with the game decided by the brothers first class move (players aren't allowed to BUY first class tickets, but they can move there or be upgraded if the airline allows it), and the Cowboys not figuring out the spinning.
May 10, 2010 at 12:02AM EST Reply to Comment
- Kevin "It should be a rule: all final legs should be self-navigated. I hate when the game is decided on who has the right cab."
  
  Yes! Absolutely effing yes! No more cabs once on American soil. Please!
  
  And Daniel's comment about the memory challenge was spot on as well. Listing out the eliminated team in order was lame. Think back to the season when TK & Rachel won and had to gather random objects from each county/leg and place them on a platform. Or when B.J. & Tyler had to place the flag of every country they visited in order. Those were difficult memory challenges (and I donâ€™t recall them being able to refer to notes).
  
  May 10, 2010 at 7:46PM EST
I can't believe how poorly thought out that Star Wars challenge was. Ideally there should have been 3 motion capture rooms where the 3 teams would navigate the virtual room unhindered. At least then there would have been an opportunity to catch or pass the leader. Instead we get the Cowboys getting stuck because Jordan is standing right in the way. If I were Jet, I would've closed my eyes, gritted my teeth and blindly walked into Jordan mumbling apologies as I went.
May 10, 2010 at 12:06AM EST Reply to Comment
- PS, Dan's a dillhole.
  May 10, 2010 at 12:07AM EST
- Rachel I absolutely agree that there should have been three motion capture rooms, but you're COMPLETELY off-base in suggesting that Dan and Jordan did anything wrong in that challenge. If you went to a challenge that only one person could do at a time - of which there have been many over the years, namely the ones involving bungee-jumping and plane-related challenges - you would EXPECT to have to wait for the previous team to complete it. As the team that arrived 20+ minutes first, Dan and Jordan were ENTITLED to complete the challenge without worrying about the other teams. They got there first. Period. (And yes, this applies to the airport situation too; the cowboys would have been well within their rights to insist on getting their tickets second. They didn't â€“ though frankly it didn't matter since they were all on the same plane).
  
  The only people to blame are the producers, who deliberately created a situation that would facilitate inter-team tension. There's no doubt in my mind that they INTENDED to create frustration for the teams.
  May 10, 2010 at 12:19AM EST
Rachel

1. U-Turning Carol and Brandy was HORRIBLE strategy. Carol and Brandy were never going to make the final three. If Brent and Caite had U-Turned the cowboys, they'd be in 2nd place at worst, and possibly 1st.

2. Spare me with all this "sportsmanship" nonsense. This is a race for MONEY. It's not about being nice; it's about how you play the game. That means doing everything within your power to get ahead, so long as it isn't illegal (obviously) or against the rules of the race.

Brent and Caite didn't do that - they got caught up in a rivalry.

The Cowboys didn't do that - they got caught up in "keeping their integrity."

Dan and Jordan did, and that's why they won.

You'll have time to make friends when you're home with the million dollars. Otherwise, don't whine when you let your emotions/"integrity" land you in 3rd.
May 10, 2010 at 12:12AM EST Reply to Comment
- anon Who was whining. Looked to me like, in spite of the underhanded move Dan/Jordan made at the airport and the disgusting ugliness of Brandy, second and third place were pretty gracious and happy to have finished as successfully as they did. No whining there.
  May 10, 2010 at 8:42AM EST
bhietanen

While I was somewhat disappointed the Cowboys didn't win I was more disappointed with the final leg. It's not a good sign when the leg was decided why moving up to first class.

Three major things make or break a season of this show. Likable teams, challenging and engaging challenges and teams that you love to hate. This season only had one team that was really enjoyable and fun to root for (the Cowboys) and that was universal.

The challenges however were very weak this season. We learn a lot about the characters when they are put in tough positions. So many challenges this season were either too easy or boring. If teams are never changing places while in the Detours or Roadblocks the game comes down to a lot of luck (taxi drivers) and how well teams can get navigate (which SHOULD be important). The weak challenges this year weren't only boring but didn't test characters enough. It's fun to see people struggle, cry, and/or fight in challenges. While having all challenges brutal would be too much, having them all too easy is worse. Minus the puzzle pieces blowing away there weren't many "brutal" challenges."

Finally the team you love to hate was decent this year but the Lesbians weren't up there with some of the all time greats (Charla & Mirna anyone). I love this show, but I'm hoping for a lot more next year.
May 10, 2010 at 12:28AM EST Reply to Comment
dan

One quick thing that I didn't mention in my recap: At the time I stood by Caite & Brent's U-Turn decision even on a strategic (and non-emotional) level on the grounds that, in a mental race, Brandy & Carol might have been the team least likely to make a mental blunder. I still believe that in-the-moment, it was acceptable strategy and totally emotionally satisfying. But the idea of either Brandy or Carol successfully completing the Coit Tower Roadblock is laughable... But that was practically first pure strength task of this entire season... -Daniel
May 10, 2010 at 12:39AM EST Reply to Comment
jay

i am really really disappointed of the finale. the cowboys should have won this season. it was a lame designed leg/finale unfortunately. but i still like this season though.
May 10, 2010 at 9:24AM EST Reply to Comment
KJB

One more point from the finale, the producers built in a "forced equalizer" at the Shanghai Airport when the teams all had to wait at a special counter until 10 am to get a flight. The equalizer may have happened anyway, but it's possible the models and the cowboys could've gotten out before Dan & Jordan, who didn't leave the pit stop until 6 am.
May 10, 2010 at 10:18AM EST Reply to Comment
Anna

Agreed that the final leg was not good.

I give Jordan and Dan props for writing things down knowing that the "remember" task would come. (This is one of those things everyone should do along with learning to drive a stick, read a map, and say 'fast' in multiple languages).

What bothered me is that the task didn't include any additional elements as it has in the past - something like searching for the right picture (in another season they had to search through hundreds of surfboards) or knowing something about a place visited (one year they had to organize flags).

It seems quite wrong to me that a team can win just because they got off the plane first.
May 10, 2010 at 1:28PM EST Reply to Comment
Bobman

Question - what are the rules about physical altercations during the Race?

Obviously they're forbidden, but to what extent? I know the producers love to play up the drama but I'm sure they don't want actual violence.

Because in both situations, I saw the Cowboys "restraint" more a fear of being penalized for starting a fight than a fear of being unsportsmanlike. ESPECIALLY when Jet refused to bump into a spinning Jordan - I can't imagine why he wouldn't just shove his way through unless he was specifically told he wasn't allowed to touch another player. Maybe I'm just being naive as to how "nice" the Cowboys were.

I'm kind of a newcomer to the Race (have watched the past three seasons including this one) so I'm curious if anyone has ever gotten into a fistfight or shoving match, and what the "outcome" was?
May 10, 2010 at 1:59PM EST Reply to Comment
- meeghab There was an incident a few seasons ago when one female racer was elbowed by another racer at the clue box (he was deaf and didn't hear her coming behind him, although it wasn't clear who was at fault.) Later they ran into each other again and he knocked her over at another clue box. Two physical altercations and no penalties or interference from the producers.
  May 10, 2010 at 7:06PM EST
Jenny

i agree with everyone, the cowboys should've won. and yes they were too nice, and yes it's a race, but you don't have to be mean and rude and get itno fights to win. so good for them, to some extent.
u-turning carol and brandy was bad strategy. they were not that strong, but brandy's comments at the finish line was not necessary at all. it was part of the game. if they can't handle that, they shouldn't have went on the race. and it's stupid how childish she was for holding a grudge about that. at least when joe and heidi got u-turned, they were good sports about it. they accepted it being part of the game.
and i really didn't like dan and jordan, and caite was shown to be stuck-up a lotta times.
August 12, 2011 at 7:39AM EST Reply to Comment
- Jenny or was carol the extremely rude one ? im not sure, i didnt really care about them. they were just too rude for anyone to wanna care and give a crap about them
  August 12, 2011 at 7:41AM EST

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Comments

bj

Very disappointed in who won this race. All the producers let us see is that people are back stabbers, get away with insults and cheating, and are poor sportsmen competitors. I will not watch another Race - this one spoiled what was once enjoyable.

PS, Dan's a dillhole.

anon Who was whining. Looked to me like, in spite of the underhanded move Dan/Jordan made at the airport and the disgusting ugliness of Brandy, second and third place were pretty gracious and happy to have finished as successfully as they did. No whining there.

jay

i am really really disappointed of the finale. the cowboys should have won this season. it was a lame designed leg/finale unfortunately. but i still like this season though.